The attitude of employees to ethics and moral norms, both corporate and social, often reflect that of their employers, and if managers and leaders are found to be breaking the law, circumventing the prevalent code of ethics, and generally falling into different ethical traps, where they lose the track of what is right and wrong, the rest of the staff likely follows suit (McDonald, 2014).
By developing effective ethical policies, the company clearly establishes to the stakeholders their appropriate code of conduct supported by procedures that enable these regulations to work, and which prevent ethical degradation from occurring. The best way to integrate them is by launching training plans which coach the staff on their ethical policies.
This paper looks at the company “Holy Angels”, the work conditions that served as the context for the establishment of its ethics policies, the policies themselves, as well the appropriate training plans to achieve maximum recognition of their purpose, as well as the appropriate ways to follow them to the best of their ability.
The Evaluated Company
The company that is being studied for its ethics policies caters to people with developmental disabilities and mental retardation, and its mission is to provide spiritual, physical, educational, social, and emotional support for individuals with varying levels of mental retardation. Since the company is already working in a very sensitive area of the industry, with a lot of media attention attached to it, it has to maintain the pristine reputation and, consequently, a perfect ethics track record.
“Holy Angels” achieves this by regularly conducting different annual tests meant to evaluate their employees for unfavorable habits or attitudes and provide feedback on it.
Additionally, the company has a number of policies referring to specific types of ethical misconduct. It opposes harassment of people based on their sex, race, religion, nationality, physical or mental disability, or other similar reasons. It also includes discrimination and threatening and destructive behavior. The Corporate Leadership Team and Executive Leadership Team directors are responsible for the policies which guarantee fair treatment to everyone. Policy development also includes on-site training for employees, and they are fully expected to follow all of the policies. These regulations are enforced on every level of the company, with no exempted parties, and every conflict needs to be resolved. Despite having policies for specific misdemeanors, “Holy Angels” don’t have a recorded code of ethics and rely on the judgment calls of the employees and managers responsible for maintaining order.
The Company Policies
Employee Conduct Policy and List of Misconduct
This is the principle ethic policy of the company, as it contains the majority of actions an individual can perform in a work environment to subvert the values and ideals of the company, as well as undermine the atmosphere it is attempting to build. The list of misconducts includes items like neglect, abuse, or inconsiderate treatment of residents, denial of “rights”, failure to adhere to the care plans, and creating an unsafe environment. Also, misconduct accounts for the inability to follow the company rules and regulations, including everything from lateness and misuse of company equipment to insubordination and use of coarse language.
In response to such actions, the company can apply a variety of disciplinary actions to the offender, with the minimum of a Written Warning and the maximum of having his or her employment terminated. The employees are encouraged to develop their moral cognition and moral motivation, and not support adverse behavior through inaction.
Numerous factors can become the source of such misconduct, and they include such human traits as greed, arrogance, anger, hypocrisy. It orders to properly address such cases of misdemeanor, there needs to be a good understanding of the behavior motives of the person responsible, and a strong moral compass of the managers (Trevino, Weaver, & Reynolds, 2006).
Grievance and Dispute Resolution Policy
To regulate the problems of grievance and disputes among employees, the company has developed an ethical policy and procedure for it. If a worker feels that they have fallen victim to a situation or treatment that was unjust, inequitable, or hindered their ability to perform effectively, they are encouraged to report it to the management of the problem cannot resolve on its own.
It is very important that the employees are able to dispute the decisions of their managers and can seek justice by going up against their chain of command. “Teaching and maintaining ethical behavior in a professional organization” addresses these questions, and points out the importance of a sense of justice, equality, and transparency in the workplace (Brodhead & Higbee, 2012).
Harassment and Sexual Harassment Policy
In a continuation of the grievance resolution policy, “Holy Angels” seeks to provide its stakeholders with an environment where they can work with dignity and confidence, and free from harassment both from a regular staff and from different levels of supervisors. Sexual harassment refers to the type of behavior that is sexual or suggestive in nature, whether it is verbal or non-verbal, and is unwelcome by the person on the receiving end. Such behavior is not tolerated in the workplace, and the victim is free to report it through numerous channels provided by the company, with full protection by the company from any retaliatory actions. The allegations with being diligently investigated, with as much confidentiality as is possible without jeopardizing the process, and disciplinary actions will be carried out if evidence of harassment was found. Once again, the employees can appeal the decisions through the Grievance Resolution procedures.
Ethical Training Plan
Employee Conduct and Misconduct Training Plan
The company would need to create an outline for its Employee Conduct and Misconduct Training program, with defined realistic objectives, and attainable deadlines. They would need to dedicate a group to designing and implementing such a program.
The second step of program implementation would focus on establishing the factors and conditions vital to successful incident management. This includes creating a team which would manage the misconduct incidents, provide them with a protocol for managing such incidents, and granting them extensive coaching on how to approach misconduct.
After such a group is established, training should be implemented for staff members through group-oriented activities like workshops, Question and Answer sessions, online resources, detailing the types of misconducts themselves, the regulations and penalties associated with them, and the procedures the employees can follow the deter or report them. To ensure that employees have understood the training, they would need to be regularly monitored and evaluated for their knowledge, in a way that is legal and ethical (Yerby, 2013).
. Based on the collected information, it will be determined how successful the training is, and how often retrains should be conducted. They would most likely need to be conducted twice a year on a large scale, as this pause will not disrupt workflow, and is enough to account for new employees, and with some smaller monthly activities like group talks, aimed at maintaining awareness.
All of these activities would have a positive impact on company ethics and would have sustained high-quality effects on the organizational culture and work environment (Warren, Gaspar & Laufer, 2014).
Harassment and Sexual Harassment Training Plan
Similarly to the example above, the company would need to allocate a team to take over the creation and implementation of the Harassment and Sexual Harassment Training Plan. While it can be the same team as the above for Employee Conduct and Misconduct Training Plan, it might be prudent to invite professionals to address the psychological strain of the experience.
The program, together with the training, would need to address the delicate nature of the harassment problem, and issues of confidentiality tied to it. Once the proper procedures for dealing with it have been designed, and staff training is being implemented, it would be advisable to divide the activities into a group-based and individual. Group based should cover the main fundamental topics, such as what constitutes sexual harassment, the rights, and tools available to the victims, and provide information about the punishment for such conduct. The training should instruct the staff on how to manage and report harassment, and how to use the reporting channels correctly. Individual activities should target separate people, and should be the part of regular staff evaluation for feedback. Such meetings would provide the opportunity for additional confidentiality. Other private channels of ethics training and feedback gathering should also to be maintained. Online resources would be very appropriate in this situation.
The results of the trainings and individual work should be carefully monitored and assessed based on their effectiveness, and retrains should be held on a semi-regular basis, for example monthly.
Conclusion
While overall the company shows a lot of effort towards maintaining positive conduct, the lack of a recorded code of ethics can lead to misunderstandings and contrasting interpretations of similar situations by different members of the Corporate and Executive Leadership Teams. Such misunderstandings can lead to a decrease in morale and productivity, disillusionment with the leadership, problems with outside parties, including people in the businesses care (Hancock, 2015).
References
Brodhead, M., & Higbee, T. (2012). Teaching and maintaining ethical behavior in a professional organization. Behavior Analysis in Practice, 5(2), 82-88.
Hancock, P. (2015). Health and Safety – An Essential Element of Ethical Practice. Web.
McDonald, R. (2014). The ethical executive: avoiding the traps of the unethical workplace. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 35(5), 490-492.
Trevino, K., Weaver, G., & Reynolds, J. (2006). Behavioral ethics in organizations: A review. Journal of Management, 32(6), 951-990.
Warren, D. E., Gaspar J. & Laufer, W. S. (2015). Is Formal Ethics Training Merely Cosmetic?.Business Ethics Quarterly, 24(1), 85-117. Web.
Yerby, J. (2013). Legal and ethical issues of employee monitoring. Online Journal of Applied Knowledge Management, 1(2), 44-55.